Shere Khan
Shere Khan is the main antagonist of Disney's 1967 film the Jungle Book and its 2003 sequel, and later an anti-hero in both its television series TaleSpin and Jungle Cubs. A powerful, suave bengal tiger, Shere Khan had nothing but disdain for his victims. His reputation was such that he needed only to show himself to intimidate the inhabitants of the jungle. His only fears were man's gun and fire. The man-cub Mowgli used fire to his advantage in the first film's climactic battle by tying a burning branch to his tail. The Jungle Book Before his appearance, Shere Khan is reffered to narrowly, indicating his fearsome nature among many. He is first seen stalking a deer as prey. His hunt was ruined when Colonel Hathi came marching by with his heard and scared it away, much to Shere Khan's disgust. After Bagheera stopped them, Shere Khan eavesdropped on their conversation and was delighted when he heard about Mowgli. After they had left, he began his own hunt for Mowgli. After searching some, he heard Kaa singing and became suspicious. He grabbed Kaa's tail and got him to come down. He questioned Kaa about Mowgli and Kaa acted strangely while answering his questions. Kaa's suspicious behavior prompted Shere Khan to search his coils for Mowgli, but was still not totally fooled when he didn't find him. He told Kaa if he did see him, he was to inform him first before continuing his search. Later he heard the Vultures singing and investigated the occasion. He then found Mowgli and, after being impressed by his courage, gave him ten seconds to run away. Khan became more and more annoyed when he didn't and tried to kill him after he reached ten. Baloo grabbed his tail before he could and stopped him. After a chase, the Vultures got Mowgli to safety. Shere Khan then became furious, battled Baloo, and nearly killed him. The Vultures intervened, stopped him before he could, and stalled him while Mowgli tied a burning branch to Khan's tail. Khan then became terrified and tried to put out the fire, but failed. He then fled with burning branch still tied to his tail and burning his back, greatly humiliating him. The Jungle Book 2 Shere Khan returned once again as the main antagonist in the second film. Unlike in the first, he appeared much earlier and also unlike his first appearance he was more evil and antagonistic (although he still shows some sense of humor). He is first seen smashing a makeshift version of Mowgli's head after Baloo left the area with Bagheera in pursuit. He seeks revenge on Mowgli for humiliating him at the climax of the original film and wishes for nothing more than his death. Khan travels to the Man-Village where Mowgli dwells. He had no luck until he heard Shanti, one of Mowgli's friends, calling him. He then found Mowgli's house and was delighted that he would now have his chance for revenge. He became impatient when Mowgli didn't appear. All at once, Mowgli appeared in the air above the house. After Shanti started screaming about a wild animal, Khan noticed it was Baloo with Mowgli and was surprised. After the villagers responded to Shanti's calls, they saw Shere Khan instead of Baloo and chased him out of the village. Khan was attacked by the villagers with torches but they had no power over him. He escaped in rage but overjoyed to hear that Mowgli is now in the jungle. He encountered Kaa afterwards, who had seen Mowgli. Kaa at first insisted he hadn't, but Shere Khan knew better and intimidated him. Out of fear, Kaa told Khan to search by the swamp. However, when Khan arrived, Mowgli is nowhere to be found. The vultures return and become uneasy when their newest member Lucky begins to taunt him. After a few "jokes", Shere Khan tricks Lucky into revealing Mowgli's whereabouts. Before Khan leaves, he viciously mauls Lucky as revenge for the annoyance and presumably kills him. Later on he found Shanti and Ranjan and cornered them. Mowgli then appeared to find them and Khan confronted him. Mowgli ran away and Khan pursued him to a temple in the middle of a pool of lava. After Baloo and Shanti teamed up and started to bang gongs with Mowgli, one fell down revealing Shanti. He then said he would kill her if Mowgli wouldn't come out. Mowgli did and he pursued him and Shanti after knocking Baloo aside. Mowgli and Shanti jumped on to a tiger statue right over a pit of lava with Shere Khan right behind them. Before he could kill them, the statue's head fell off towards the lava. Baloo saved Mowgli and Shanti while Khan fell into the pit. Rather than perishing, he landed of a slab of rock and was trapped underneath the statue's head. Lucky, still alive but lost the feathers on his body and has a bruised right eye, then flew down and started to tease Khan again, much to his annoyance. He presumably starved to death. TaleSpin Shere Khan appeared in a more anthropomorphic form in the television series TaleSpin. Khan is an extremely wealthy businessman who is the dominant economic force in Cape Suzette and an anti-hero. He is sometimes accompanied by an unnamed emaciated tiger "yes-man" office aide. He takes enjoyment out of running small companies out of business (Higher for Hire is sometimes on his hit list) with a sense of ruthlessness to skirt around the law as he chooses. He also likes to feed tiny insects to the many carnivorous plants he grows in his office. He once even hired the Air Pirates to create an artificial oil shortage so he could extort higher prices from the public in "On a Wing and a Bear". He has a well-armed air force and navy, complete with battleships. This is mainly to protect his shipping and business interests worldwide. However, he is willing to act nobly at times, such as ordering his forces into the air to protect the city from the Air Pirates, and has shown that he respects Baloo's piloting skills, most notably when he allowed Baloo to take over piloting his plane after having all pilots replaced with his own robotic pilots; his plane had been ambushed by the air pirates and the robotic pilot refused to deviate from its flight plan due to its programing causing Baloo to forcefully remove the robot and take control of the plane to evade the air pirates. He has an extremely cool and calm personality, rarely (if ever) showing any sort of alarm or surprise regardless of the circumstances. In fact, when his plane was attacked by Don Karnage's forces in the incident detailed above, he calmly mixed himself a drink as he explained the situation to Baloo. This version of Shere Khan also makes a cameo on a mugshot in Bonkers!. Jungle Cubs Shere Khan appeared as a young cub in the animated series Jungle Cubs. In the series, it was shown that Shere Khan was originally friends with Baloo, Bagheera, Hathi and the others. Shere Khan was more of a bully and cocky in the series rather than a dangerous predator. Khan often tagged along with Baloo and friends on many adventures, usually trying to prove he's braver than they are. In the series, Shere Khan is voiced by Jason Marsden who gives Khan an American accent, while in other appearances, Khan speaks with a British accent. In spite of being a cub, Khan still holds his intimidating demeanor and continues to strike fear into the hearts of many of the jungle's inhabitants. However, his cocky attitude can get him and his friends into trouble with foes even he's frightened by. Khan prefers to refer to the others as his followers rather than his friends, even though he obviously enjoys spending time with them. Much like an adult, Khan was sometimes found with Kaa often. In one episode, the duo teamed up to take advantage of Louie, after he accidentally injured them. Acting as if they were too injured to do anything themselves, they spent the day bossing the ape around. In Jungle Cubs: Born to Be Wild DVD, Khan, as an adult, returned to murder Mowgli yet again; however, Baloo was able to throw a beehive onto the tiger's head, having him run off in pain. House of Mouse Shere Khan appeared in the TV series House of Mouse as a recurring guest, usually seen sitting either alone or with Kaa. In his most notable appearance in "The Mouse Who Came to Dinner", Mortimer Mouse was pretending to be the club's critic (which was really Lumière) to have Mickey and friends obey him and when he became annoying, Khan became annoyed as well and quoted "Do you mind?", to which Mortimer replied "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do mind, Stripey! Somebody get Tigger's evil twin here a ball of yarn!" A dish called Shere Khan's Flawn, named after the villainous tiger, is mentioned by Goofy in "Rent Day". In "Dining Goofy", Khan was accidentally given broccoli by Goofy, thus angering the tiger. Soon after Goofy was replaced by advanced technology, Khan's meal order was corrected. In "Goofy's Menu Magic", when a food shortage occurred, Goofy attempted to serve Khan his shoe for dinner (an apparent reference to the Goofy short Tiger Trouble). Khan, however, was unamused. He was one of the Disney Villains in Mickey's House of Villians 2. In "Ask Von Drake", Khan appears with Kaa during The Ludwig Von Drake Song. Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book Shere Khan also appears in the 1994 live-action film, being portrayed by a real tiger. However, Shere Khan is presented as a more sympathetic character in this film. Khan appears rarely and instead serves as an anti-hero of the film while an arrogant British captain named William Boone (who is played by Cary Elwes) serves as the villain of the film. Unlike Boone, Khan does not kill for sport, and his sole goal is to protect the jungle from those who break "the laws of the jungle", including humans who trespass with guns and kill animals for fun instead of food. He is described in the beginning of the film as 'the jungle's royal keeper.' Trivia *In the planned third installment of the Jungle Book franchise, Shere Khan was to have escaped from the statue at the beginning of the movie, and end up captured alongside Baloo and forced into a circus environment. During this time, Shere Khan will also end up regretting his actions from the previous two films and intend to reform as Mowgli and the other animals attempt to rescue them. However, due to the Jungle Book 2's poor sales, it was scrapped. *It's unknown how Baloo and friends became enemies wth Shere Khan as they got older. *It is also unknown how he lost his Mom and/or Dad, possibly hunted down by humans and this was the cause for his hatred of humans. *Shere Khan has similarites to the non- Disney Villain Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda. **On a minor note, both are wild cats. **Neither of them have henchmen. **Both have been built up throughout the film, implying how strong, powerful, and dangerous they really are. **Both have almost killed the deuterogonists of their films. (Shifu and Baloo). *Shere Khan also shares strong similarities with Soto from the non-Disney animated film, Ice Age. **Both are types of big cats: Shere Khan is a Bengal tiger; Soto is a Smildon (saber-toothed tiger). **Both have an intense to all-consuming hatred of humans. **Both are hunting a human child due to said hatred. In Soto's case, it's also for revenge as he claims most of his pride has been killed by human hunters. The same is implied for Shere Khan, but not outright stated. **Both end up fighting and nearly killing a main character who is trying to stop them from killing their intended quarry. For Shere Khan, it's Baloo the bear; for Soto, it's Diego, another Smilodon and former member of his pride. **The one main difference is that Soto has lackeys whereas Shere Khan hunts alone. Category:Villains Category:Characters from jungle book Category:Tigers Category:Cats Category:Characters Category:Presumably Deceased Characters Category:Bad boss Category:Jungle animals Category:Those eaten Category:Staff members of james ; s hide out Category:Zoos Category:Reformed characters Category:Heroes Category:Animals